Lawrence Kohlberg

Lawrence Kohlberg (25 October 1927-19 January 1987) was an American psychologist known for his theory of stages of moral development; he was effectively the father of the moral development field of psychology.

Biography
Lawrence Kohlberg was born in The Bronx, New York City, United States in 1927, the son of a Jewish entrepreneur father and a Christian German mother. He served in the merchant marine at the end of World War II and also helped Haganah with smuggling refugees into Mandatory Palestine, and he completed his psychology doctorate in Chicago in 1958. He became a professor at Yale, and he went on to coin several stages of moral development, namely: Kohlberg effectively extended Jean Piaget's account of moral development with his theory, and he created the "moral development" field of psychology. In 1971, he contracted a parasitic infection while doing cross-cultural research in Belize, leaving him with lifelong abdominal pain. He also struggled with depression, and, on 19 January 1987, he walked into the icy Boston Harbor from the end of a dead end street, committing suicide.
 * Pre-conventional - Judging morality by its direct consequences, young children
 * Stage One - Punishment enforces morality
 * Stage Two - "What's in it for me?"
 * Conventional - Adolescents and adults
 * Stage Three - Try to be a "good boy/girl"
 * Stage Four - Obeying laws and conventions to create a functioning society
 * Post-conventional - Developing one's own morals
 * Stage Five - Social contracts and democracy
 * Stage Six - Abstract reasoning and a commitment to justice